Surf: Knee-Waist High. Light offshore winds. Warm! Sunny!

Yaaaay! Family vacation to Costa Rica!

We haven’t taken a family trip since 2005. This year for Christmas we spent the Holiday in Costa Rica. I’ve been looking for a good excuse to get my family involved in my surf life so I arrange for some classes in Playa Grande from Point Break Surf. They set us up with surfboards (softies for Dad and Wes and a proper board for me) and made arrangements for a van to pick us up.

The road out to Playa Grande was rough. Three water crossings, steep gravel hills. We got to see a lot of nature, but wow…we were pretty relieved to be out of the van and on the HUGE beach.

At low tide the beach is massive.

Grande indeed.

While waiting for the tide to come in, we body surfed for a while in the warm water. Got a few fun rides and a few beatings. One of those beatings took my wallet which, for no logical reason, was in my board shorts. Oh well!

Once the tides were right and the instructor had pulled up with with the boards, we hit the surf. Lots of great little waves for Wes and Dad to learn on. Dad got lots of long rides on his knees and a few stand up rides. Everyone cheered for him. Wes got some nice ones in too and is getting better at turning. The instructors were great, they kept everyone motivated, safe, and happy.

Mom braved the hot sun to take pictures of us.

I had fun picking off little corners. I got a few tips from the instructor and helped push some little groms into waves.

It was a lot of fun watching the little fish scatter as I swooped in on my bottom turn. Wheeee.
All around great day.

Surf: 3-5 ft. waist to head high and poor-fair conditions.

This morning’s dawn patrol: Slightly jumbled, crossed-up peaks on offer this morning. Looking a bit more disorganized than yesterday, with a few rideable corners still making it through at times.

I have never surfed on a shortboard and I have never surfed at Ocean Beach. Shortboards are harder to paddle, harder to catch waves with, but when you’ve got them you can tear up waves. You can also duck dive with a shortboard (swim under an oncoming wave with the board instead of paddling over). Duck diving comes in very handy at a place like Ocean Beach where the waves are bigger, more powerful, and take a lot more paddling to get through.

I’m on a smaller, harder to paddle board facing bigger, more powerful waves. Fantastic idea right there in the works!

Cryptomail gave me some pointers on duck diving and waited patiently as I failed at it over and over. I didn’t manage to paddle out past the breaking waves. I did catch one wave boogie board style, but spent most of the morning under water or falling off the board. I need a lot of practice before I stop looking like a flailing wet mess and look more like a surfer. Ha.

More from the day on my Flickr

Conditions: 3-4 ft. + – waist to shoulder high and fair-good conditions. Clean, peaky lines with workable shoulders and fair-good shape.
Gear: 9 ft foam board

AWESOME day.

I got together a group of friends who were looking to learn and headed to the beach for another Adventure Out class. My friends all got the basic class while I talked to one of the instructors about where I wanted to improve. Basically I wanted to work on my timing, on reading a wave, and generally working on my confidence.

I spent the day working with Melissa on catching waves, trying to learn when I should paddle slow (if it’s a steep wave) and when I should paddle faster to catch the wave. Mike helped me learn to balance my upper body and to use my front shoulder to steer. I learned to set up top turns and how to start to think about bottom turns. I didn’t get a whole lot of turning in, but I got up lots of times and had a blast.

Everyone else was getting the hang of things pretty quickly too, hopefully I’ll have a few more friends in the water!

Conditions: Bigger, Rougher Waves*
Gear: Rental foam board

Day Two of my surf class was Sunday April 27th, 9-Noon. Also with Adventure Out.

Day Two was when all the hard paddling from Day One (and all the rock climbing from the day before day one) finally caught up to me. Ow.
Owwww.

I was exhausted, but happy. The waves were much harder to paddle out into, fewer lulls and a lot more whitewater. I only caught three waves the whole day and didn’t get past kneeling on the board, but it was still fun. Hard work, but fun.

Injury report: I took a bit of an ambitious wave and fell. Underwater I could feel my leash go taught and I knew the board was probably not someplace I wanted it to be. Sure enough when I came to the surface, WHACK I got nailed with the board right in the face. Good thing I was doing the safety head cover the instructors told us about or I’d probably have gotten a black eye.

*This day was prob more like 3-5 feet with a lot of wind and back to back sets. No real downtime and some tough waves to paddle through.

Conditions: Small Clean Waves*
Gear: Rental foam board

Day: AWESOME

My first surf class was Saturday April 26 from 9am to Noon with Adventure Out.
I can’t recommend these guys enough.

The lesson included a wetsuit; a board; plenty of time on dry land learning safety, wave reading, etiquette, and pop ups; plenty of time in the water learning to paddle, dodge waves, timing, standing and turning. The instructors were great. They spent the time hanging out with us and helping us each individually work on our timing and telling us what to do on the next wave to get better.

I stood up a few times, cheated a few other times by just getting up to my knees instead of a clean pop-up, and turned once. It was sooooo much fun.

I got pretty much hooked right then and there.

*This was before I started checking Surfline religiously for conditions. It was probably 2-4 feet, not a lot of wind and the sets were pretty chill. Lots of time to rest between sets.